The Galápagos Islands are home to incredible endemic biodiversity that is of high conservation interest. Two such endemic species are the Galápagos tomatoes: Solanum cheesmaniae and Solanum galapagense. Both are known from historical location records, but like many endemic plant species on the Galápagos, their current conservation status is unclear. We revisited previously documented sites of endemic species on San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz, and Isabela, and document the disappearance of >80% of these populations. In contrast, we find that two invasive relatives (Solanum pimpinellifolium and Solanum lycopersicum) are now highly abundant, and in some cases—based on morphological observations—might be hybridizing with endemics. Our findings suggest that expanding human developments and putative interspecific hybridization are among the major factors affecting the prevalence of invasives and the threatened persistence of the endemic populations.


The paper presents recent results in the area of high-power testing aimed at improving the safety of electrical staff working on live equipment. The driver for this work is the American Guide (IEEE 1584) on such exposure hazards, which has the potential for international adoption and, in the authors' opinion, does not provide a suitable methodology for assessing the hazard. A selection of results is presented, obtained in a high-power-system-supplied commercial test laboratory, using the latest charge-coupled device (CCD)-based high-speed video-recording methods. Results are reported for 415-V currents in the range of 1000-70 000 prospective root mean square (rms) amperes and for tests at 5000 V in the range of 1000-27 000 A. The impact of conventional protective devices is included together with some disturbing video results for circuit-breaker-protected systems. The major part of the material in this paper was first presented at the 7th International Conference on Electric Fuses and Their Applications, Jurata, Poland, in 2003.


The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of five types of disposable protective eyewear devices, to determine variables affecting compliance with the use of protective eyewear, and to determine the frequency of subclinical eye splatter. One hundred volunteer health care providers were assigned to one of five study eyewear groups and given a protective eyewear device to use for 2 weeks in an urban teaching referral center. Questionnaires were used to survey eyewear habits and other variables before the study. The devices were determined to be 88% effective overall, and there was no statistically significant difference between groups. The incidence of subclinical splatter was 50%. Even though disposable eyewear devices providing full frontal and lateral eye coverage are effective in preventing eyesplatter, the incidence of eyesplatter among health care providers working in nonsurgical areas is more common than previously assumed because of the lack of recognition of splatter (subclinical splatter) by the workers.


The effect of Sherpa plus (Cypennethrin 12g + dimethoate 100 g/l) at four concentration levels was examined on the damage caused by Busseola fusca (F.) [Lepidotera :Noctuidae] on the yield of six maize varieties and cultivars at Jalingo and Yola in 2013 cropping season. The experiment was a split-plot design with six maize varieties/cultivars [T2L-Comp.4c2;BR-9928-DMR-SR-Y; SWAN 1(white); SWAN 2 (yellow) and the cultivars Ex-Jalingo white and yellow] were the sub-plots and the main-plots were the four concentration levels (0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 l/ha) on a sub-plot size of 3x3m replicated 3times. Maize plants were sprayed 2 times with Sherpa plus at 4 and 8 weeks after emergence (WAE). The damage recorded were pin-hole stem tunneling and breakage at cob formation soft dough stage. The highest yield was 0.5/ha (4,700 kg/ha) followed by 1.01lha(4,079.69 kg), while lower yield of 3,112.95 was recorded on the control (0.0l/ha).There was less stem tunneling and breakage at 1.5 Vha. The variety that gave the highest yield was T2L-Comp.4c2 (5,022.0Kg/ha) while the least was SWAN 1(white) obtained from Osun State ADP (1,716 kg/ha). The Ex- Jalingo yellow and white cultivars gave moderate yields of 4.500.95 and 4,421.80 kg/ha respectively. Higher yields were obtained from Jalingo than at Yola. It is recommended here that the improved varieties obtained from IITA be used for planting by farmers, while the local cultivars obtained at Jalingo should be improved by breeders since they were relatively more promising than the SWANs.


Thank you for reading the significance and basic postulates of economic theory. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have search hundreds times for their favorite books like this the significance and basic postulates of economic theory, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they cope with some malicious virus inside their computer.


Staphylococcus aureus is the causative agent of many diseases, including meningitis, bacteraemia, pneumonia, food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. Structural characterization of the PaaI-like thioesterase SAV0944 (SaPaaI) from S. aureus subsp. aureus Mu50 will aid in understanding its potential as a new therapeutic target by knowledge of its molecular details and cellular functions. Here, the recombinant expression, purification and crystallization of SaPaaI thioesterase from S. aureus are reported. This protein initially crystallized with the ligand coenzyme A using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion technique with condition No. 40 of Crystal Screen from Hampton Research at 296 K. Optimal final conditions consisting of 24% PEG 4000, 100 mM sodium citrate pH 6.5, 12% 2-propanol gave single diffraction-quality crystals. These crystals diffracted to beyond 2 Å resolution at the Australian Synchrotron and belonged to space group P12(1)1, with unit-cell parameters a = 44.05, b = 89.05, c = 60.74 Å, β = 100.5°. Initial structure determination and refinement gave an R factor and R(free) of 17.3 and 22.0%, respectively, confirming a positive solution in obtaining phases using molecular replacement.


Charging and discharging of series connected batteries as a whole is associated with charge imbalance problems, which will result in damage to battery cells and reduction of battery life. Various circuits for charge/discharge equalization have been proposed. But so far there is no criterion for comparison and evaluation. In this paper, all the circuits are divided into four groups according to the structure, and each of them is qualitative analyzed and marked with 5-degree marking system. The results are helpful for people to select suitable charge/discharge equalization method. Furthermore, based on experimental results a novel evaluation method with two parameters is proposed, which is very convenient for estimating the equalization effects in static and dynamic equalization. All the results can be used for further study on charging equalization technique.


This article investigates considerations of distributive and corrective justice in the context of climate change policy. The authors accept that there is good reason for greenhouse gas emissions restrictions, but those reasons do not include concerns about distributive and corrective justice. It is unclear that those restrictions are the best way to help the most disadvantaged people in the world, and climate change does not fit the standard conception of tort.


Emergency disaster management has emerged as a vital tool for reducing the harm and alleviating the suffering that disasters worldwide cause their victims. A significant task of planners involved in emergency disaster management is the ability to plan for and satisfy the vital needs of the people located in emergency shelters, such as the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, which was used as a shelter during Hurricane Katrina. This task requires determination of a way to reduce the uncertainties associated with emergency operations and to estimate the expected costs of delivery and consumption of vital supplies throughout these operations. This paper attempts to address these issues by application of a case study–based approach to demonstrate the usefulness of a stochastic humanitarian inventory control model and estimation of the minimum safety stock levels of emergency inventories. The emergency inventory management problem is discussed, and previous emergency inventory studies are reviewed to identify the need for a stochastic emergency inventory management model. After introduction of the mathematical formulation for the model, the formulation is applied to a number of realistic case studies built on the basis of the experiences in recent major disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina. The paper concludes with a summary of lessons learned for the model when it is applied to a wide range of scenarios drawn from real-life experiences and used to create emergency inventory management strategies for different types of disasters.


The purpose of the work is to confirm experimentally theoretical estimates for time complexity of operations of the string processing model linked with the metric space for solving data processing problems in knowledge-driven systems including the research and comparison of the operation characteristics of these operations with the characteristics of similar operations for the most relevant data structures. Integral and unit testing were used to obtain the results of the performed computational experiments and verify their correctness. The C \ C++ implementation of operations of the string processing model was tested. The paper gives definitions of concepts necessary for the calculation of metric features calculated over strings. As a result of the experiments, theoretical estimates of the computational complexity of the implemented operations and the validity of the choice of parameters of the used data structures were confirmed, which ensures near-optimal throughput and operation time indicators of operations. According to the obtained results, the advantage is the ability to guarantee the time complexity of the string processing operations no higher than O  at all stages of a life cycle of data structures used to represent strings, from their creation to destruction, which allows for high throughput in data processing and responsiveness of systems built on the basis of the implemented operations. In case of solving particular string processing problems and using more suitable for these cases data structures such as vector or map the implemented operations have disadvantages meaning they are inferior in terms of the amount of data processed per time unit. The string processing model is focused on the application in knowledge-driven systems at the data management level.


The journey from playful musical exploration in childhood to an adult identity as a skilled musician is likely to be problematic for people with hearing impairments. Although a number of subjective accounts have been published, there is a lack of empirical research in the area. In this study, twelve musicians with hearing impairments were interviewed about their musical background, hearing loss and experiences of interactive music making. A thematic network analysis was performed on the verbatim transcripts. Musical families were shown to facilitate positive, early, influential experiences helping individuals to develop musical self-efficacy. These themes were found to operate independently of the challenges posed by a hearing impairment and in spite of negative music-making experiences. Dynamic listening styles were identified, ranging from full reliance on hearing to discriminate and even non-auditory attending. The development of listening styles was found to be crucial in negotiating problems in auditory perception caused by physiological changes in hearing level and the distorting effects of hearing aids.


Certain oceans, whose obliteration during Paleozoic time led to climactic deformation of the Appalachian-Caledonian orogenic belt, closed at different times along the belt. Irregularity of the continental margins that collided during Late Silurian, Early Devonian, and Middle Devonian times caused great variations in structural style and igneous and metamorphic associations. The impingement of projections caused intense deformation leading to cryptic sutures and, in places, basement reactivation. Wider zones of less intense deformation are believed to represent embayments in the colliding margins. Late granite and associated high-grade metamorphic aureole rocks, are more common in the narrower, more intensely deformed regions; we suggest that they represent partial melts from lower parts of a thickened continental crust in these areas. "Granite" in embayments, floored by deformed oceanic basement, is suggested to represent the partial melting of that basement and (or) the covering sediment. In both cases, the magmatism reflects depression of crustal material to a depth below a particular critical isotherm and does not necessitate any abnormal heat input from below the crust.


Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette-Guèrin (BCG) represents one of the most promising live vectors for the delivery of foreign antigens to the immune system. A recombinant BCG containing a synthetic gene coding for the malarial epitopes namely, the fragment 2 of region II of EBA-175 (F2R(II)EBA) and the repeat sequence of the circumsporozoite protein NANP generated in favour of mycobacterium codon usage using assembly PCR was constructed. Two T-cell epitopes of the 6-kDa M. tuberculosis early-secreted antigenic target (ESAT-6) antigen were also clone in the same construct. Expression of the synthetic gene was driven by the heat shock protein 65 (hsp65) promoter from M. tuberculosis and the signal peptide from the MPT63 antigen of M. tuberculosis. Expression of the composite epitopes was detected by Western blotting of the cell extract and culture supernatant of the recombinant clones using a specific rabbit polyclonal antibody against F2R(II)EBA. This study demonstrates the possibility of cloning and expressing immunogenic epitopes from causative agents of two important diseases: malaria and tuberculosis (TB) in a single recombinant BCG construct.


Background The benefit of colorectal cancer screening in reducing cancer risk and related death is unclear. There are quality measure indicators and multiple factors that affect the performance of a successful colonoscopy. The main objective of our study was to identify if there is a difference in polyp detection rate (PDR) and adenoma detection rate (ADR) according to colonoscopy indication and which factors might be associated. Methods We conducted a retrospective review of all colonoscopies performed between January 2018 and January 2019, in a tertiary endoscopic center. All patients ≥ 50 years old scheduled for a nonurgent colonoscopy and screening colonoscopy were included. We stratified the total number of colonoscopies into two categories according to the indication: screening vs. non-screening, and then calculated PDR, ADR and serrated polyp detection rate (SDR). We also performed logistic regression model to identify factors associated with detecting polyps and adenomatous polyps. Results A total of 1,129 and 365 colonoscopies were performed in the non-screening and screening group, respectively. In comparison with the screening group, PDR and ADR were lower for the non-screening group (33% vs. 25%; P = 0.005 and 17% vs. 13%; P = 0.005). SDR was non-significantly lower in the non-screening group when compared with the screening group (11% vs. 9%; P = 0.53 and 22% vs. 13%; P = 0.007). Conclusion In conclusion, this observational study reported differences in PDR and ADR depending on screening and non-screening indication. These differences could be related to factors related to the endoscopist, time slot allotted for colonoscopy, population background, and external factors.


Abstract Species richness and diversity of Phytophthora spp. (water molds) in urban riparian-forest ecosystems, which serve as primary drainage passageways for surface-water runoff, may be attributed to surrounding landscape management, associated vegetation, and environmental conditions. These riparian areas, although generally small, are always flooded during wet seasons and almost completely dry during the hottest parts of each year when there is limited precipitation. Little is known about Phytophthora spp. diversity within these heavily impacted sites. We sampled water, soil, and vegetation (phenology dependent) across 14 dates, over ~2 y at a site containing a drainage ditch that enters Hog Creek, in Rankin County, MS. We cultured all Phytophthora spp. using 4 published protocols to ensure maximum isolation potential. Across all sampling dates, 65 isolations were positive for Phytophthora spp., 12 of which were recovered from vegetation. We employed morphological and internal transcribed sequence (ITS) data to confirm taxa. We determined a total of 11 taxa on the basis of their phylogenetic clustering with known species of Phytophthora in a bayesian analysis. The most common taxa were P. chlamydospora, P. mississippiae, and P. cinnamomi at frequencies of 12.5%, 11.0%, and 10%, respectively. We verified morphologically and by sequence similarity an undescribed species, Phytophthora oaksoil taxon, which has been reported previously in the Western US, as well as other countries, such as Australia. Overall, the bottle-of-bait (BOB) intact-leaf and water-filtration methods had numerically greater frequencies (P ≤ 0.05) than BOB leaf disks, soil-baiting leaf disks, or vegetationsampling protocols. Overall frequency (14%) of Phytophthora spp. was significantly greater (P ≤ 0.05) for the 17 December 2014 sampling date. Even though several taxa identified in this study are reported to be pathogenic to riparian forest trees and vegetation at the Hog Creek site, symptoms on surrounding trees and vegetation was generally limited to foliar lesions, and we observed no visible damage or decline during the study period. It would be judicious to visit different, similar urban habitats to determine if common Phytophthora in this study are present in other central and southern Mississippi riparian habitats.


The empirical finding that entrepreneurs tend to invest a large share of their wealth in their own firms despite comparably low returns and high risk has become known as the private equity premium puzzle. This paper provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that lower risk aversion of entrepreneurs, and not necessarily credit constraints, may explain this puzzle. The analysis is based on a large, representative panel data set for Germany, which provides information on asset portfolios and experimentally validated risk attitudes. The results show that both the ownership probability and the conditional portfolio share of private business equity significantly increase with higher risk tolerance.


Currently, the cultivation of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) is gaining more and more popularity. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of different nitrogen (N) fertilization levels on the parameters related to the efficiency of the photosynthetic apparatus, plant photosynthetic productivity, tuber yield and tuber dry matter yield of I. batatas. The study also aimed to identify phenotypic variation in the physiological measures and tuber yield traits of I. batatas. To achieve these objectives, a field experiment was carried out during the period 2013–2015 in Uhnin (51.5833° N, 23.0333° E), central-eastern Poland. The experimental factor was different nitrogen fertilization rates (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 kg ha-1 N). The conditions in the experimental years had the strongest effect on tuber dry matter content and yield and on minimum chlorophyll fluorescence yield and chlorophyll a content. The fertilization × year interaction had the lowest percentage contribution to the total variance, while its highest contribution was observed for chlorophyll b. Nitrogen fertilization had the lowest percentage contribution to the physiological measures of chlorophyll fluorescence, but a quite high contribution to tuber dry matter content and yield. Nitrogen fertilization up to a level of 150 kg ha-1 N beneficially affected electron flow at successive plant growth stages, beginning from the 6-leaf stage until physiological maturity. Nitrogen fertilization was also shown to have a stimulating effect on the photosynthetic efficiency of I. batatas at the end of the growing season. A decreasing trend was observed in the maximum chlorophyll fluorescence yield (Fm) as affected by increasing N rates. A significant increase in actual photochemical efficiency of photosystem (PS) II (Y) and in the photochemical fluorescence quenching coefficient (qP) was observed up to a level of 100 kg ha-1 N. The minimum chlorophyll fluorescence yield (F0), non-photochemical fluorescence quenching coefficient (qN) and electron transport rate (ETR) were most favourable in the plots fertilized at a rate of 150 kg ha-1 N.


The first step in the assembly of the dolichol-linked oligosaccharides required for asparagine-linked glycosylation in eukaryotes is catalyzed by a tunicamycin-sensitive, dolichol phosphate-dependent N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate transferase (GPT). A fragment of the gene encoding the enzyme from Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells was partially cloned and characterized by a novel strategy. By stepwise selection, CHO cells were made 80-fold resistant to tunicamycin and found to have 10-fold elevated levels of GPT activity. Using a cloned segment of the yeast ALG-7 gene, which encodes the putative GPT from yeast, an amplified gene was identified by Southern blotting of the CHO DNA and a 6.6-kilobase segment of the gene was molecularly cloned. A family of RNA molecules in the 2.0-2.2-kilobase range identified with a probe from this gene was overexpressed in the resistant cells. The cloned DNA revealed a 24-amino acid residue sequence that was 92% conserved with the corresponding yeast sequence.


Friction effects are particularly critical for industrial robots, since they can induce large positioning errors, stick-slip motions, and limit cycles. This paper offers a reasoned overview of the main friction compensation techniques that have been developed in the last years, regrouping them according to the adopted kind of control strategy. Some experimental results are reported, to show how the control performances can be affected not only by the chosen method, but also by the characteristics of the available robotic architecture and of the executed task.


Range pastures provide the basic ruminant feeds resource for livestock production in semi-arid areas despite ruminant nutrition remaining a challenge affecting productivity. Different livestock development interventions have been promoted to improve livestock nutrition with low farmer adoption rate. A cross sectional exploratory study was conducted between March and July 2018 to identify the drivers of range pastures improvement technologies adoption in rangelands with specific objectives as: (a) Assessing the knowledge, attitudes and practices of pastoralists in regard to range pasture improvement practices and technologies; (b)  identifying the forage species planted by pastoralists and strategies for their sustainable utilization; (c) identifying the incentives for the adoption and maintenance of range pasture improvement practices and; (d) identifying the key players and their roles in range pasture improvement promotion and constraints faced in attempt to improve rangeland pastures. A structured questionnaire guided interview was conducted with 294 agro pastoralists while qualitative data was obtained using, KII.  Results revealed that farmers had knowledge on range pasture improvement technologies, although adoption rate was low (19.5%). The range pasture improvement practices, included:  Pasture establishment, bush clearing, paddocking, conservation, reseeding and over-sowing and water development. However, results also revealed knowledge gaps in silage and hay making, reseeding and understanding principles of range management. The level of education, household income, off farm activities, access to laborers and credit, agriculture exhibitions, farmers' meetings and on-farm demonstrations influenced farmers' adoption of fodder production technologies. Farm gate milk prices, sensitization, financial support, farm output of adopters and inputs support seemed to drive farmers to improve their range pastures. These findings underline the importance of farm-gate milk prices and institutional support as drivers for farmer decision for investment in pasture improvement. Therefore, policy and development interventions should emphasize improvement of milk farm gate prices and farm support systems.

 Key words: Farm-gate milk prices, range over-sowing, re-seeding, species recruitment.


The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences in children's physical activity levels during physical education (PE) classes. Specific attention was paid to differences between genders in the heart rate responses to different types of activities in PE classes. Activity levels were assessed by monitoring continuous heart rates, with results indicating that girls were significantly more active during PE than boys. Team sports in both sexes, and tennis in the case of the girls, fulfil the recommendations to occupy at least 50% of PE class time doing moderate and vigorous physical activities (MVPA). The results suggest that structured PE classes may provide different amounts of physical activity for both genders. Key Words: adolescent, health promotion, moderate and vigorous activity.


Researchers are shaking up their old conclusions about when--and why--each of the more than two dozen domesticated animals was brought under human rule by using more sensitive techniques, such as tracing demographic patterns in bone assemblages, to tease out the signature of human handling. So far such methods are pushing back the dates of domestication of one animal--pigs--revealing animal husbandry in what is now southeastern Turkey long before cultivation began there. More examples may follow.


Mature dendritic cells (mDCs) are the most potent antigen-presenting cells known today, as they are the only antigen-presenting cells able to induce naïve T-cells. Therefore, they play a crucial role during the induction of effective antiviral immune responses. Interestingly, the surface molecule CD83 expressed on mDCs is targeted by several viruses. As CD83 has been shown to exert co-stimulatory functions on mDCs, its downmodulation represents a viral immune escape mechanism. Mechanistically, it has been shown that herpes simplex virus type 1 infection leads to proteasomal degradation of CD83, resulting in a strongly diminished T-cell stimulatory capacity of the infected mDC. Previous data suggest that the viral immediate-early protein ICP0 (infected-cell protein 0) plays an important role in this process. In the present study, we showed that ICP0 is sufficient to induce CD83 degradation in the absence of any other viral factor. However, the mechanism of ICP0-mediated CD83 degradation is not yet understood. Here, we provide evidence that ubiquitination of lysine residues is, despite the published E3 ubiquitin ligase activity of ICP0, not necessary for CD83 degradation. This finding was underlined by the observation that expression of an ICP0 mutant lacking the E3 ubiquitin ligase domain in mDCs still induced CD83 degradation. Finally, inhibition of E1 activating enzyme using the specific inhibitor 4[4-(5-nitro-furan-2-ylmethylene)-3.5-dioxo-pyrazolidin-1-yl]-benzoic acid ethyl ester did not prevent CD83 degradation. Taken together, our data provide strong evidence that ICP0 alone induces CD83 degradation independent of its E3 ubiquitin ligase function and of the ubiquitin machinery.


For planning issues, it is useful to know the upper limit for photovoltaics (PV) in the electrical grid with current design and operation (defined as hosting capacity) and how this limit can be increased. Future costs for grid reinforcement can be avoided if measures are taken to implement smart grid technology in the distribution grid.The aim of this project is to identify challenges in Swedish electricity distribution grids with a high penetration of local generation of electricity from PV. The aim is also to help Swedish Distribution System Operators (DSOs) to better understand hosting capacity issues, and to see which room for PV integration there is before there is need for actions to maintain power quality.Three distribution grids are modelled and simulated in Matlab: Rural area, Residential area and City (Stockholm Royal Seaport). Since the project is a cooperation between Uppsala University and Fortum, three different representative grids from Fortum's grid software "Power Grid" have been used as input to a flexible simulation program developed at Uppsala University. The simulation includes Newton-Raphson power-flow computing but has also been improved with a model of the temperature dependency of the resistance.The results show that there is room for a lot of PV systems in the Swedish grids. When using voltage rise above 1.1 p.u. voltage as limitation, the hosting capacity 60% PV electricity generation as a fraction of the yearly load were determined for the rural grid and the suburban grid. For the city grid, which is very robust, the hosting capacity 325% was determined. When using overload as limitation, the hosting capacities 70%, 20% and 25%, were determined for the same grids.


Protein interaction networks are a promising type of data for studying complex biological systems. However, despite the rich information embedded in these networks, they face important data quality challenges of noise and incompleteness that adversely affect the results obtained from their analysis. Here, we explore the use of the concept of common neighborhood similarity (CNS), which is a form of local structure in networks, to address these issues. Although several CNS measures have been proposed in the literature, an understanding of their relative efficacies for the analysis of interaction networks has been lacking. We follow the framework of graph transformation to convert the given interaction network into a transformed network corresponding to a variety of CNS measures evaluated. The effectiveness of each measure is then estimated by comparing the quality of protein function predictions obtained from its corresponding transformed network with those from the original network. Using a large set of S. cerevisiae interactions, and a set of 136 GO terms, we find that several of the transformed networks produce more accurate predictions than those obtained from the original network. In particular, the $HC.cont$ measure proposed here performs particularly well for this task. Further investigation reveals that the two major factors contributing to this improvement are the abilities of CNS measures, especially $HC.cont$, to prune out noisy edges and introduce new links between functionally related proteins.


Spatio‐temporal knowledge representation often requires changing from one level of detail or granularity to another so users can carry out a desired task. Meteorological occurrences, geological processes, or population movements, for example, can be examined at different granularities. This includes different spatial perspectives as well as temporal views where phenomena may be examined under real time conditions, or over hourly, daily, weekly, or longer periods. Moving back and forth among granularities is a necessary routine for many domain scientists. Changing to a more detailed view uncovers information that otherwise is unknown. Conversely, moving to a simpler view can improve our understanding of phenomena. Although people routinely abstract information from their environment at different granularities and perform mental shifts that increase or decrease detail, formalization of these alterations for use in information systems has proved difficult. Geographic information systems typically treat changes in granularity from the perspective of changes to the geometric properties of objects through graphic zooming. None of the current approaches to zooming offer support for performing this operation over time. This work focuses on the temporal aspects of changing granularity or temporal zooming. The approach is based on a model of change to identifiable objects. In this paper, temporal zooming involves expanding or collapsing the transitions among identity states of the same object as well as revealing or omitting other objects that are linked through transitions. A set of operations to support refining and coarsening the evolution of objects over time is presented. This work offers a new perspective on zooming important for spatio‐temporal query languages and for users of large spatio‐temporal databases who require the means to shift back and forth among simpler or summarized views of data and more detailed views.


We consider a queueing system with C customer classes under a nonpreemptive service discipline. The goal is to find gradient estimators for the stationary average sojourn time per customer of each class under admission control. Due to the service discipline, IPA (infinitesimal perturbation analysis) estimators are not applicable. We present the idea of harmonic gradient (HG) estimation, based on the Fourier decomposition of periodic functions. The canonical estimators can be used to obtain consistent estimators for all the control variables in a single run. However, the large number of values for each parameter required in the estimation can greatly affect the performance. We then describe the implementations of the phantom RPA (rare perturbation analysis) method. This method requires evaluating, in parallel, the dynamics of as many phantom systems as customers in each busy period. Since this number is random, the implementation of the method can be rather complex. We use the Fourier decomposition ideas to construct a hybrid estimator that we call the phantom HG method. We then give simulation results to compare the performance of the estimators and their complexity.


Municipalities have become increasingly bold in their use of eminent domain. This sovereign power was once reserved for public works, but municipalities have increasingly used eminent domain for such putatively private projects as building factories, shopping malls, and upscale condominiums - using the increased tax revenue that these projects will produce rather than the public's ability to make use of the development itself to justify their actions. This Note [written prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. New London] explores the controversial exercise of eminent domain for the purpose of promoting private development. After tracing the history of the eminent domain power in America, this Note suggests a judicially manageable test for determining the validity of a proposed taking. Those acts that are traditionally within the scope of the eminent domain power should be treated as presumptively valid, whereas takings for the purpose of transferring property to private entities should be subjected to a higher level of scrutiny. This solution will not prevent all takings for the purpose of private development; it would, however, acknowledge the limitations imposed by the Fifth Amendment's Public Use Clause and limit the use of eminent domain to those projects that truly benefit the public.


Here you are called to contemplate the antics of Big Gay Church (BGC), considering how the NAEA Queer ritual revels in joyous excess, deploys humor and absurd actions that move participants toward healing damaged psyches and souls. The BGC performing troupe tackles critical social injustices and does so through unexpectedly delightful and irreverent services that confront pain, cruelty, erasure, and abuse. Four or more colleagues have led this scholarly, political and performative inquiry for more than a decade, attempting to replace damaging actions with healing gestures of love, caring comradery, and contemplative reimagining of what church could be. Perhaps most significantly, this arts-based performative inquiry theoretically celebrates all that is queer, and encourages pre-service art educators and those who guide them to embrace diversity and inclusion while in pursuit of equity and engagement. The manuscript opens by outlining how queer inquiries reclaim unattended lives, expands perspectives, and celebrates queerness for all. The paper then shares an overview of Big Gay Church as an annual academic ritual at the National Art Education Association (NAEA annual meeting, Methods and modes of presentation vary by co-presenter – most building on childhood lived experiences of Church. This second section's illustrated counterpoint to descriptions of s typical presenter's contributions to the BGC service. The third section, describes presenters' varying methods and narratives, and assert this play-group employs farce, irony, and humor while leveling institutional critiques (particularly tackling NAEA's evolving relations with the LGBTQIC+ special interest group. The Conclusion traces BGC service, the pedagogical and historical challenges the group calls congregants to help undertake, and ALWAYS doing so with joy.


Estrogens, primarily 17beta-estradiol (E(2)), may play important roles in male physiology via the androgen receptor (AR). It has already been shown that E(2) modulates AR function in LNCaP prostate cancer cells and xenograft CWR22 prostate cancer tissues. Using a molecular model of E(2) bound-AR-ligand binding domain (LBD) and employing site-directed mutagenesis strategies, we screened several AR mutants that were mutated at E(2)-AR contact sites. We found a mutation at amino acid 749, AR(M749L), which confers AR hypersensitivity to E(2). The reporter assays demonstrate that E(2) can function, like androgen, to induce AR(M749L) transactivation. This E(2)-induced AR mutant transactivation is a direct effect of the AR(M749L), because the transactivation was blocked by antiandrogens. The hypersensitivity of AR(M749L) to E(2) is not due to increased affinity of AR(M749L) for E(2), rather it may be due to the existence of the proper conformation necessary to maintain E(2) binding to the AR-LBD long enough to result in E(2)-induced transactivation. AR(M749L) transactivation can be further enhanced in the presence of AR coregulators, such as ARA70 and SRC-1. Therefore, amino acid 749 may represent an important site within the AR-LBD that is involved in interaction with E(2) that, when mutated, allows E(2) induction of AR transactivation.


The ability to automatically detect and track surgical instruments in endoscopic videos can enable transformational interventions. Assessing surgical performance and efficiency, identifying skilled tool use and choreography, and planning operational and logistical aspects of OR resources are just a few of the applications that could benefit. Unfortunately, obtaining the annotations needed to train machine learning models to identify and localize surgical tools is a difficult task. Annotating bounding boxes frame-by-frame is tedious and time-consuming, yet large amounts of data with a wide variety of surgical tools and surgeries must be captured for robust training. Moreover, ongoing annotator training is needed to stay up to date with surgical instrument innovation. In robotic-assisted surgery, however, potentially informative data like timestamps of instrument installation and removal can be programmatically harvested. The ability to rely on tool installation data alone would significantly reduce the workload to train robust tool-tracking models. With this motivation in mind we invited the surgical data science community to participate in the challenge, SurgToolLoc 2022. The goal was to leverage tool presence data as weak labels for machine learning models trained to detect tools and localize them in video frames with bounding boxes. We present the results of this challenge along with many of the team's efforts. We conclude by discussing these results in the broader context of machine learning and surgical data science. The training data used for this challenge consisting of 24,695 video clips with tool presence labels is also being released publicly and can be accessed at https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/isi-surgtoolloc-2022.


The global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is associated with the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which requires ventilation in critically ill patients. The pathophysiology of ARDS results from acute inflammation within the alveolar space and prevention of normal gas exchange. The increase in proinflammatory cytokines within the lung leads to recruitment of leukocytes, further propagating the local inflammatory response. A consistent finding in ARDS is the deposition of fibrin in the air spaces and lung parenchyma. COVID‐19 patients show elevated D‐dimers and fibrinogen. Fibrin deposits are found in the lungs of patients due to the dysregulation of the coagulation and fibrinolytic systems. Tissue factor (TF) is exposed on damaged alveolar endothelial cells and on the surface of leukocytes promoting fibrin deposition, while significantly elevated levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI‐1) from lung epithelium and endothelial cells create a hypofibrinolytic state. Prophylaxis treatment of COVID‐19 patients with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) is important to limit coagulopathy. However, to degrade pre‐existing fibrin in the lung it is essential to promote local fibrinolysis. In this review, we discuss the repurposing of fibrinolytic drugs, namely tissue‐type plasminogen activator (tPA), to treat COVID‐19 associated ARDS. tPA is an approved intravenous thrombolytic treatment, and the nebulizer form has been shown to be effective in plastic bronchitis and is currently in Phase II clinical trial. Nebulizer plasminogen activators may provide a targeted approach in COVID‐19 patients to degrade fibrin and improving oxygenation in critically ill patients.


A connecting rod made of titanium alloy is effective for lower fuel consumption and higher power output comparing to a steel one because the titanium connecting rod enables to reduce the weight of both of reciprocating and rotating parts in an entire engine substantially. But up to now, it has been adopted only to expensive and small-lot production models because a material cost is high, a processing is difficult and a wear on a sliding area should be prevented. In order to adopt the titanium connecting rods into a more types of motorcycles, appropriate materials, processing methods and surface treatment were considered. Hot forging process was applied not only to reduce a machining volume but also to enhance a material strength and stiffness. And the fracture-splitting (FS) method for the big-end of the titanium connecting rod was put into a practical use. The brittle fractured surface of the big-end by FS method is useful for not only cost reduction but also ensuring the stiffness of the connecting rod compensating the low elastic modulus of titanium alloy comparing to that of ferrous alloys. In this study, the evaluation results of materials characteristics related to these processes and functional property of surface treatment is described. From these evaluations, the capabilities of FS titanium connecting rods were quantitatively shown. FS titanium connecting rods have been produced for the supersport motorcycle engines from November 2014.


This paper describes the design and implementation of a tool for examining representations of eating practices among youth using group work. The proposed method recognizes the complexity of the issues surrounding food and eating among young people while setting clear and realistic goals. This means taking into account the many determinants of eating behavior and empowering young people to control these factors. In doing so, the paper illustrates two fundamental principles of health promotion.


cAMP is an important mediator of cystogenesis in polycystic kidney disease (PKD). Several adenylyl cyclase (AC) isoforms could mediate cAMP accumulation in PKD, and identi fi cation of a speci fi c pathogenic AC isoform is of therapeutic interest. We investigated the role of AC6 in a mouse model of PKD that is homozygous for the loxP- fl anked PKD1 gene and heterozygous for an aquaporin-2-Cre recombinase transgene to achieve collecting duct-speci fi c gene targeting. Collecting duct-spe-ci fi c knockout of polycystin-1 caused massive renal cyst formation, kidney enlarge-ment, and severe kidney failure, with a mean survival time of 2 months. In contrast, coincident collecting duct-speci fi c knockout of polycystin-1 and AC6 (also homozygous for the fl oxed ADCY6 gene) markedly decreased kidney size and cystogenesis, improved renal function, reduced activation of the B-Raf/ERK/MEK pathway, and greatly increased survival. Absence of collecting duct AC6 did not alter urinary cAMP excretion or kidney cAMP concentration. In conclusion, AC6 is a key mediator of cyst formation and renal injury in a model of PKD.


Serum levels of creatine phosphokinase (CPK) and pyruvic kinase (PK) were determined in 42 controls, 57 patients with various neuromuscular disorders, and 23 female relatives of Duchenne dystrophy patients. CPK and PK enzyme activities were increased in comparable numbers of muscle disease patients and female carriers; there was no advantage in the combined use of the two tests. We did not confirm earlier reports suggesting that determination of PK is more valuable than CPK in carrier detection.


The precarious status of flat oyster Ostrea edulis stocks in Europe is widely acknowledged. To build a scientific basis for oyster restoration, an elevated experimental reef stocked with O. edulis was established within Poole Bay (Dorset, UK). Oysters were planted out on twenty four oyster reef modules (80cm above sea bed) and compared with oysters held on the sea bed close to each reef module to test the hypothesis that a reef habitat enhances physiological performance of O. edulis and improves local biodiversity. The environmental data indicated that there was no significant difference in temperature or salinity between the elevated reefs and sea bed. Whilst total suspended solids were significantly higher at the sea bed than at 80 cm above the sea bed at every sampling interval. The filtration rates of oysters varied with elevation (reef/sea bed) and months. Filtration rates of reef oysters were significantly higher than sea bed oysters. Respiration rates varied among months but were not significantly affected by elevation. Elevation and month also affected the total number of haemocytes and the granulocyte population; reef oysters had significantly higher numbers of haemocytes than sea bed oysters. Althought geographical variation in filtration rate was also observed, this study suggested that the improved physiology of reef oysters in summer was still notable when comparing between different populations. An increase in filtration rate for reef oysters may, however, increase the likelihood of uptake of the protozoan parasite, Bonamia sp.. However, haemocyte and haemolymph protein data suggested that there was no differential impact on physiology between reef and sea bed oysters as a result of Bonamia sp. infection. Fifty-four epifaunal species including oyster spat were found on oyster valves in reef boxes whilst only 23 species with no oyster spat were found on oyster valves in oyster cages laid on sea bed. The epifaunal community on oyster valves on reefs was significantly different from those sea bed valves but also had some species in common. Sixty-five mobile species were observed in reef boxes, whilst 47 species were recorded in oyster cages. These differences in faunal communities observed on the elevated reefs and sea bed implied that the presence of elevated reef habitats created by O. edulis valves can enhance or accelerate local diversity in Poole Bay. As current stocks of European flat oysters (O. edulis) in Europe have declined in both abundance and distribution, the results of this pilot study suggest that the culture of oysters on elevated reef structure represents at least a partial solution to improve O. edulis physiology for restoration in Europe.


PURPOSE
Hospitalized patients with advanced cancer have a high symptom burden and need for support. Integration of palliative care (PC) improves symptom control and decreases unwanted health care use, yet many patients are never offered these services. In 2016, ASCO called for incorporation of PC into oncologic care for all patients with metastatic cancer. To improve the quality of cancer care, we developed standardized criteria, or triggers, for PC consultation on the inpatient solid tumor service.

METHODS
Patients were eligible for this prospective cohort study if they met at least one of the following eligibility criteria: had an advanced solid tumor; prior hospitalization within 30 days; hospitalization > 7 days; and active symptoms. During the intervention, patients who met the criteria received automatic PC consultation.

RESULTS
When we compared patients in the intervention group with control subjects, there were increases in PC consultations (19 of 48 [39%] to 52 of 65 [80%]; P ≤ .001) and hospice referrals (seven of 48 [14%] to 17 of 65 [26%]; P = .03), and there were declines in 30-day readmission rates (17 of 48 [35%] to 13 of 65 [18%]; P = .04) and receipt of chemotherapy after discharge (21 of 48 [44%] to 12 of 65 [18%]; P = .03). There was an overall increase in support measures following discharge ( P = .004). Length of stay was unaffected.

CONCLUSION
To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that among patients with advanced cancer admitted to an inpatient oncology service, the standardized use of triggers for PC consultation is associated with substantial impact on 30-day readmission rates, chemotherapy following discharge, hospice referrals, and use of support services following discharge. Expansion of this model to other hospitals and health systems should improve the value of cancer care.


This study focuses on the occurrence of two selected biocides, namely triclosan (TCS) and chlorhexidine (CHX), in the drinking water system of Ankara, Turkey. Samples were taken from the three main components of the drinking water system (Camlodere and Kesikkopru¨ Reservoirs, Ivedik Water Treatment Plant (IWTP) and the distribution network). Seasonal variations in biocide levels as well as their relation to general water quality parameters were sought. TCS levels detected in Camlodere and KesikkopruReservoirs were in the range of 0.65-11.15 ng/L and 0.86-48.96 ng/L, respectively; whereas CHX levels detected were between <1.33-5.31 ng/L. TCS was completely removed in IWTP. In accordance with the result for the IWTP outlet, biocides in the distribution network were all below the limit of quantifications. Moreover, some conventional water quality parameters were related to the concentrations of biocides in surface waters.


The emergence of Cloud computing and the improvement of resource management techniques have contributed to an increase in the number of application developers that are strong supporters of partially or completely migrating their application to a highly scalable and pay-per-use infrastructure. In this work in progress paper we begin the analysis on how to optimally distribute the application layers in the Cloud in order to adapt its topology to handle oscillating over time workloads. More specifically, through an empirical workload analysis and characterization we present our initial evaluation of an application persistence layer's performance under different deployment scenarios.


In the past four decades, the discourse on addiction in the United States has dramatically changed. Most scholarly and popular accounts have depicted this change as an instance of "medicalization," whereby medical definitions and imperatives have displaced those of morality, war, or criminal justice. This article seeks to revise that dominant characterization. In fact, the medicalization trend is only one part of a broader discursive shift, in which addiction has been normalized as a form of attachment and conduct—rendered ordinary, even predictable or natural, for a human life. The article reveals this shift through a set of historical readings across four venues in the period 1980–1993: scientific research, diagnostic protocols, judicial practice, and political rhetoric. More than an empirical advance, this shift in addiction discourse reflects a novel construction of the subject in our time.


Only time will tell if motion-controlled systems are the future of gaming and other industries and if mid-air gestural input will eventually offer a more intuitive way to play games and interact with computers. Whatever the eventual outcome, it is necessary to assess the ergonomics of mid-air input metaphors and propose design guidelines which will guarantee their safe use in the long run. This paper presents an ergonomic study showing how to mitigate the muscular strain induced by prolonged mid-air gesture interaction by encouraging postural shifts during the interaction. A quantitative and qualitative user study involving 30 subjects validates the setup. The simulated musculo-skeletal load values support our hypothesis and show a statistically significant 19% decrease in average muscle loads on the shoulder, neck, and back area in the modified condition compared to the baseline.


We report the properties of more than 800 bursts detected from the repeating fast radio burst (FRB) source FRB 20201124A with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) during an extremely active episode on UTC 2021 September 25–28 in a series of four papers. In this second paper of the series, we study the energy distribution of 881 bursts (defined as significant signals separated by dips down to the noise level) detected in the first four days of our 19 hr observational campaign spanning 17 days. The event rate initially increased exponentially but the source activity stopped within 24 hr after the 4th day. The detection of 542 bursts in one hour during the fourth day marked the highest event rate detected from one single FRB source so far. The bursts have complex structures in the time-frequency space. We find a double-peak distribution of the waiting time, which can be modeled with two log-normal functions peaking at 51.22 ms and 10.05 s, respectively. Compared with the emission from a previous active episode of the source detected with FAST, the second distribution peak time is smaller, suggesting that this peak is defined by the activity level of the source. We calculate the isotropic energy of the bursts using both a partial bandwidth and a full bandwidth and find that the energy distribution is not significantly changed. We find that an exponentially connected broken-power law function can fit the cumulative burst energy distribution well, with the lower and higher-energy indices being −1.22 ± 0.01 and −4.27 ± 0.23, respectively. Assuming a radio radiative efficiency of η r = 10−4, the total isotropic energy of the bursts released during the four days when the source was active is already 3.9 × 1046 erg, exceeding ∼23% of the available magnetar dipolar magnetic energy. This challenges the magnetar models which invoke an inefficient radio emission (e.g., synchrotron maser models).


One hundred years ago in the United States, confronted by the urgent need to find a debt workout procedure for large corporate and railroad bond issuers, the financial community looked at three options: amend the U.S. bankruptcy law to permit reorganizations (the predecessor of today's Chapter 11), not just liquidations of the debtor companies; include contractual provisions in the underlying bonds that would allow a restructuring of those instruments with the consent of a supermajority of the bondholders; or pursue a court-supervised debt restructuring by engaging the equitable powers of the civil courts to oversee such a process. A century later, confronted by the urgent need to find a debt workout procedure for sovereign bond issuers, the same three options are open for discussion. The International Monetary Fund is actively studying the possibility of constructing, at the supranational level, the equivalent of a "Chapter 11 for countries." The use of contractual provisions to facilitate sovereign debt workouts - an idea whose time had visibly not come even just a few years ago - is being reconsidered by both the sovereign borrowers and the institutional bondholder community in the light of Argentina's catastrophic debt default in December 2001. Resort to the equitable powers of the civil courts to oversee creditor-led sovereign debt workouts is, we believe, possible in appropriate circumstances. This article looks at the existing contractual provisions in sovereign bonds and the existing U.S. legal procedures in order to explore how far these may be enlisted to further the goal of orderly sovereign debt rearrangements. This article concludes that these existing contractual provisions and civil procedures - if used creatively and confidently - can go much further toward achieving this goal than conventional wisdom would suggest.


The requirement of high performance computing at low power can be met by the parallel execution of an application on a possibly large number of programmable cores. However, the lack of accurate timing properties may prevent parallel execution from being applicable to time-critical applications. This problem has been addressed by suitably designing the architecture, implementation, and programming models, of the Kalray MPPA (Multi-Purpose Processor Array) family of single-chip many-core processors. We introduce the third-generation MPPA processor, whose key features are motivated by the high-performance and high-integrity functions of automated vehicles. High-performance computing functions, represented by deep learning inference and by computer vision, need to execute under soft real-time constraints. High-integrity functions are developed under model-based design, and must meet hard real-time constraints. Finally, the third-generation MPPA processor integrates a hardware root of trust, and its security architecture is able to support a security kernel for implementing the trusted execution environment functions required by applications.


OF DISSERTATION A NETWORK PATH ADVISING SERVICE A common feature of emerging future Internet architectures is the ability for applications to select the path, or paths, their packets take between a source and destination. Unlike the current Internet architecture where routing protocols find a single (best) path between a source and destination, future Internet routing protocols will present applications with a set of paths and allow them to select the most appropriate path. Although this enables applications to be actively involved in the selection of the paths their packets travel, the huge number of potential paths and the need to know the current network conditions of each of the proposed paths will make it virtually impossible for applications to select the best set of paths, or just the best path. To tackle this problem, we introduce a new Network Path Advising Service (NPAS) that helps future applications choose network paths. Given a set of possible paths, the NPAS service helps applications select appropriate paths based on both recent path measurements and end-to-end feedback collected from other applications. We describe the NPAS service abstraction, API calls, and a distributed architecture that achieves scalability by determining the most important things to monitor based on actual usage. By analyzing existing traffic patterns, we will demonstrate it is feasible for NPAS to monitor only a few nodes and links and yet be able to offer advice about the most important paths used by a high percentage of traffic. Finally, we describe a prototype implementation of the NPAS components as well as a simulation model used to evaluate the NPAS architecture.


PURPOSE
The Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is widely used to design and test complex physical phenomena. This paper presents a simulator of x-ray detector for imaging applications by providing a simple component that can be embedded into a MC code and allowing developers to focus their attention on the primary goals without hanging in the quality of the final output image.

METHODS
A simplified semiempirical model of x-ray detector was developed and implemented starting from the definition of absorber material and developing scintillator and photoconductor screens and detectors. The validation was done by comparing a Hamamatsu C10900D digital flat panel with a simulation of the same detector using the presented model: MTF, nNPS, and NEQ.

RESULTS
The results of validation tests shown excellent agreement of the simulation with respect to the experimental data. The simulation was fast and efficient even in older computers (2004) and it was excellent in newer multicore computers (2010).

CONCLUSIONS
Comparisons between experimental data and simulations shown that the simulator is able to mimic the output of a real imaging system, and it can have many applications in fields such as industry, medical physics, and teaching.


Dissolved oxygen (DO) is an important parameter with significant effect on cellular development and function. Micron-scale laminar flow and hydrodynamic focusing provide ideal tools for the generation of controlled chemical micro-environments and their application as stimuli to cells. In this paper, we demonstrate the generation and characterization of multistream laminar flow and hydrodynamically focused sample streams with defined dissolved oxygen concentrations on chip. A solid-state oxygen sensor layer was integrated into PDMS-based microchannels and calibrated. Several combinations of sample and buffer streams with concentrations ranging from 0 to 34 mg/l DO were generated and measured for up to three independent parallel flow streams. In addition, diffusion-based stream broadening measured with the sensor was used to determine the coefficient of diffusion of O2 in the flow medium. The devices have the potential to provide novel insights into cell biology and improve the relevance of in vitro cell assays.


Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have been constructed by using diferuloylmethane dye as natural photosensitizers for anatase nanostructure TiO 2 thin film coated on FTO conductive glass substrate. Structural and morphological properties of the semiconductor films have been characterized by X-ray diffractometer and scanning electron microscopy, respectively, as well as, the wavelength of the maximum absorbance of the dye anchored on TiO 2 film has been studied by using UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The XRD pattern of TiO 2 thin films made by Doctor-blading deposition technique has revealed that the grain size of TiO 2 is equal to 40 nm. The photovoltaic performance of the cells have been investigated in terms of power conversion efficiency, furthermore the effect of different spectroscopic parameters on the PV performance of constructed DSSC has been studied.


The motivational base of this study lies in the real-life problem faced by many L2 learners: How can learners achieve target-like lexical competence? It does not take much to demonstrate that knowing a dictionary definition alone is not enough, but how learning from context actually leads to accuracy of production has remained unclear. The present article addresses this issue by proposing a cognitive model that illustrates the role of context and definition as well as L1 translation in the acquisition of conceptual knowledge. Drawing on studies of L1 acquisition, particularly the usage-based theory of language acquisition, this paper discusses in depth how L2 acquisition differs from L1 acquisition in various aspects. Meanwhile, it accounts for the development of accuracy by adopting a gap-filling-oriented acquisition view. In summary, by providing a systematic account for how various components contribute to the acquisition of a word, the proposed model offers a solution to several important debates in SLVA besides giving new insights into a range of pedagogical and


Development of new personal mobile and wireless devices for healthcare has become essential due to our aging population characterized by constant rise in chronic diseases that consequently require a complex treatment and close monitoring. Personal telehealth devices allow patients to adequately receive their appropriate treatment, followup with their doctors, and report any emergency without the need of the presence of any caregivers with them thus increasing their quality of life in a cost-effective fashion. This paper includes a brief overview of personal telehealth systems, a survey of 100 consecutive ED patients aged >65 years, and introduces "Limmex" a new GSM based technology packaged in a wristwatch. Limmex can by a push of a button initiate multiple emergency call and establish mobile communication between the patient and a preselected person, institution, or a search and rescue service. To the best of our knowledge, Limmex is the first of its kind worldwide.


Background : The birth defect, and lack of tissue joining during development, leads to cleft palate and lip. Treating facial clefts is a highly challenging reconstructive problem in rhinoplasty. There are several surgical procedures and evaluations but these do not offer the ideal and standard procedure for surgeons. A questionnaire was performed to suggest the best surgical procedures from dentists, to treat the patients. Aim : The purpose of this questionnaire, is to spread the knowledge about the treatment of cleft palate and at the same time indicates the corrections if the primary surgery failed. Method : A questionnaire was taken from100 dental post graduate studentsin 1 month. A questionnaire with 10 questions was set to assess the knowledge about cleft palate. Results : They believed that the main reason for development of cleft palate is genetic with a percentage of 36.6%. The failure of cleft palate is 57.3% and it is caused by a secondary procedure. The most commonly seen cleft palate is cleft of soft palate only, with 40.8% chance. The routine repair of cleft palate does not come with repair of nose also. The desired method for cleft palate is hard and soft palate as a single procedure. The type of method used to identity cleft palate during pregnancy is by ultrasonography. Conclusion : The purpose of this study was to provide administrations to patients, staff improvement, and the ideal utilisation of constrained assets and experts. We trust that the discoveries in this review will give preparatory data to possibly accomplish a standardised reason to invite more queries for more knowledge regarding cleft palate.


Abstract Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a novel bio-medical HIV prevention option for individuals at high risk of HIV exposure. This qualitative interview study explores perceptions and understandings of PrEP among a sample of 20 HIV-negative and HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) in the UK, where there is a debate about the feasibility of offering PrEP on the NHS. Data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis and social representations theory from social psychology. The following three themes are discussed: (1) uncertainty and fear, (2) managing relationships with others, and (3) stigma and categorization. HIV-negative interviewees generally perceived PrEP as a risky solution for "high risk" individuals, while HIV-positive individuals regarded it as potentially enhancing interpersonal relations between serodiscordant partners. Social stigma overwhelmingly underpinned individuals' perceptions of PrEP. This might inhibit access to PrEP among those who might benefit most from it, thereby undermining HIV prevention efforts.


Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS) is a variant of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) characterized by acute onset of ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and areflexia. Diplopia, altered ocular motility, pupillary dysfunction and blepharoptosis have been reported in MFS patients. However, the relationship between antiphospholipid antibody and MFS remains largely unclear. Here we report the first Chinese patient with MFS who showed proptosis and pain and had serum anti-GQ1b antibodies and IgM anticardiolipin antibody. A 64-year-old woman presented with numbness of distal limbs, proptosis and pain after upper respiratory tract infection. Her bilateral eye pain got exacerbated, along with blepharoptosis, ophthalmoplegia and horizontal binocular diplopia. Ophthalmological exam revealed normal pressure in both eyes. The neurological examination revealed bilateral ptosis, proptosis with serious tenderness, ophthalmoplegia with dull pupil reaction to light, and areflexia. There was no ataxia. Serum anti-GQ1b antibodies and IgM anti-cardiolipin antibody were positive. Our case suggests that MFS presenting with proptosis and pain may be associated with serum anti-GQ1b antibodies and IgM anti-cardiolipin antibody.


PurposeThe use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has become a major driving force in transforming education worldwide. Similarly, in the last ten years, the usage of ICTs and e-learning in Pakistan has increased. Whereas the latest educational policy of the Government of Pakistan has focused on using ICTs and e-learning in schools and universities. The national professional standards for teachers have also suggested teachers to integrate ICTs in their classrooms and develop e-learning platforms for teaching and learning processes. However, in this study the effectiveness of information and communication and e-learning technologies integration in teaching and learning has been assessed. The context selected for this research study is a public university of Sindh, Pakistan. The research gap, which has been founded through the extensive literature review, indicated that most of the students are not able to utilize ICTs effectively. The first objective of this study is to enable students to gain wider range of knowledge and access Internet for developing a global outlook. Moreover, the second objective of this study is to develop students' capabilities of processing information more effectively and efficiently for teaching and learning.Design/methodology/approachBy nature, this study is quantitative survey-based research study. For this purpose, data has been collected from students and teachers of English, Computer Science and Business Administration departments of targeted university, survey questionnaires have been adopted as a data collection tool. Whereas the random sampling technique is used for the collection of data by using Morgan table of sample size. Additionally, data has been collected from 100 participants, 80 of them were students and 20 were teachers, and data has been analyzed by using SPSS 22.0 software.FindingsThe findings of this study have indicated the student's level of interest toward the integration of ICTs and e-learning in science and social science courses. Similarly, the findings specify that through ICT and e-learning materials, students can learn more effectively, which can also facilitate teachers for their teaching process in this modern era of technology. Whereas the issue that has been specified through the findings is that the teachers are not encouraged by the management of the university to implement the ICT in their teaching and learning due to their concerns on the limited resources and lack of competencies.Practical implicationsFor the practical implication, the findings of this study will facilitate the teachers and learners for integrating the ICTs and e-learning in their course curriculums and interactive teaching practices as per modern era of technology. Also, this study will help the provincial leader and policymakers by addressing the teachers' concern to encourage the integration of ICT tools and develop capabilities for interactive classrooms for effective teaching and learning.Originality/valueThis is the first study of its nature that has been conducted in the Pakistani public university in rural setting, and the finding of this study will facilitate and help the institutional and government stakeholders to where and how they can effectively integrate ICTs and e-learning in classrooms for interactive teaching and learning processes in the rural Sindh.


The philosophical logic by Karl Jaspers is contrary to all approaches to this topic by other philosophers who derive it from systems philosophy and ontology. Its aim is to combine the different strands of philosophy's history (especially after Kant) synoptically. In this synopsis we find the four modes of the encompassing (die Weisen des Umgreifenden) in which human practice is unfolding: being, consciousness in general, spirit, and existence, standing in a tension between world and transcendence. This means it was necessary for him to differentiate the indispensable psychological fundamental functions—and with this Jaspers delivers a contribution to integrated anthropology. Regarding philosophical logic as an overall concept, the general significance of this logic is that it is distinct from theories of methods, categories, and sciences that have to be treated separately from it. It has to be considered as underpinning an intercultural basic knowledge in contrast to that special knowledge as it is presented by the aforementioned theories. Seen from a practical point of view this logic can be utilized for religious dialogues founded on modern metaphysics, a differentiated treatment of anthropology, and an adequate social theory. This practical point of view (Jaspers' clavis clavium) is essential for understanding his works that were written after 1935.


Medicinal plants have always played a great role in preventing, controlling and alleviating various disease conditions. Ficus capensis Thunb. (Moraceae) leaves have been reported in literatures to possess anti-diarrhea properties and have been used as such by herbal practitioners in some parts of Benue State, Nigeria. This work examined the preliminary phytochemical constituents of the plant part using standard procedures and also the anti-diarrhea effects of the leaves of the plant in adult mice and albino rats using three models.Preliminary phytochemical screening of the powdered leaves revealed the presence of saponins, steroidal glycosides, flavonoids and tannins. In mice, between 100 - 400 mg/kg (orally administered), the crude aqueous extract of the leaves exhibited a dose-related reduction in the gastrointestinal tract motility as indicated by the distance moved by the charcoal meal. In albino rats, the aqueous extract also displayed significant delay in the onset of stooling, and produced remarkable decrease in the number and weight of stools produced with 100 - 400 mg/kg of the aqueous extract. In the organ bath model, the aqueous extract at concentrations of 50, 100 and 200 mg/ml was observed to have relaxant effects on the isolated rat ileum as it remarkably reduced the ileal contractions occasioned by administration of acetylcholine. The activities of the extract were comparable with that of atropine (0.1 mg/kg). The results of this work validated the claimed use of the leaves of F. capensis in controlling diarrhea among the Igede people of Benue State, Nigeria.

 Key words: Ficus capensis, aqueous extract, gastrointestinal motility.


A new method of calculation of contact characteristics for rough surfaces is proposed based on integral relations that express the normal contact stress as an explicit function of the surface shape. To produce calculations by this method, a region having a simple shape should be chosen first, where the contact is supposed to be nominally complete. An iterative procedure with regard to the shape is applied within the load-free surface portion, and allows the normal stresses, surface displacement and the real area of contact to be determined. The method is applicable to rough bodies of arbitrary shape for which the half-space formulation and equivalent roughness concepts apply; the real contact area should lie within the initially chosen contact region and can include a system of unconnected contact spots. Both 2D and 3D cases are considered in the present work. The 2D analysis is based on known integral relations for nonperiodic and periodic contact problems. In the 3D case, new analytical relations are obtained and their properties are analyzed. An iteration algorithm based on these relations and its efficient numerical implementation are described. Application of the method to the contact of real rough surfaces is discussed.


The privacy policies, terms, and conditions of use in any Learning Management System (LMS) are one-way contracts. The institution imposes clauses that the student can accept or decline. Students, once they accept conditions, should be able to exercise the rights granted by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, students cannot object to data processing and public profiling because it would be conceived as an impediment to teachers to execute their work with normality. Nonetheless, regarding GDPR and consulted legal advisors, a student could claim identity anonymization in the LMS, if adequate personal justifications are provided. Per contra, the current LMSs do not have any functionality that enables identity anonymization. This is a big problem that generates undesired situations which urgently requires a definitive solution. In this work, we surveyed students and teachers to validate the feasibility and acceptance of using aliases to anonymize their identity in LMSs as a sustainable solution to the problem. Considering the positive results, we developed a user-friendly plugin for Moodle that enables students' identity anonymization by the use of aliases. This plugin, presented in this work and named Protected users, is publicly available online at GitHub and published under GNU General Public License.


The policy focus report series is published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to address timely public policy issues relating to land use, land markets, and property taxation. Each report is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice by combining research findings, case studies, and contributions from scholars in a variety of academic disciplines, and from professional practitioners, local officials, and citizens in diverse communities. The authors document the results of a five-year study of global urban expansion, initiated in 2005 with a grant from the World Bank that resulted in the report, The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion (Angel et al. 2005). That initial phase of the study focused on analyzing and comparing satellite images and urban populations in a global sample of 120 cities circa 1990 and 2000. A second phase of the study, with support from the National Science Foundation , involved a survey of housing conditions and the regulatory regimes governing urban expansion in the same sample of 120 cities. The survey was conducted by local consultants in 2006–2007. The third and fourth phases, with support from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Cities Alliance, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, involved several additional steps and resulted in three Institute-sponsored working papers. They present historical research on urban expansion in 20 U.S. cities from 1910 to 2000; historical analysis of a representative global sample of 30 cities from 1800 to 2000; and the analysis of a new global urban land cover map of all 3,646 named large cities with 100,000 people or more in the year 2000 (Angel et al. 2010a; 2010d; 2010e). The complete data sets, with their associated maps and spreadsheets, are available in The Atlas of Urban Expansion on the Lincoln Institute Web site at


Nanosized hydroxyapatite (nano-HA) in narrow size distribution was prepared in the microemulsion system. The experimental factors of pH values and temperature were specially investigated in order to receive nano-HA particles with the required morphologies. Several kinds of nano-HA with different shapes, sizes and crystallization were obtained by regulating the above factors in the experiment. After the as-received nano-HA particles were heat-treated at an elevated temperature, they became a kind of globular particles with an average size of 60nm and showed excellent disperse ability in absolute alcohol.


Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) provide trajectory data of fishing vessels to discover the spatial-temporal pattern of fishing activities. Although previous researches exhibit the fishing resource distribution in space and time, the information on vessel sailing activities traveling from one fishing region to another are lost. These kinds of activities indicate the link relationships among fishing regions. Moreover, the pattern accuracy depends on the precision of fishing activity recognition, which cannot be testified by the VMS data itself. The major challenge to find precise fishing regions and sailing roads linking the regions is the chicken-and-egg conundrum. Because there are no pre-existed routes in oceans like on land to define the blocks. This paper proposes an iterative style scheme to calculate the fishing regions and sailing roads between regions simultaneously, which applies the sailing segments between the coarse recognized fishing activities. We takes the VMS traces of 34 otter trawls in the East China Sea as the research object ranging from April 1st, 2014 to June 30th, 2016. The results are calculated with the time period of one quarter, which not only indicate the precise separation of fishing regions, but also reveal the link relationships between regions. This leads to the precise fishing region and roads recognitions, which will help the fishery researchers for further analysis on VMS trace data.


In this letter, we propose a learning system, active decision fusion learning (ADFL), for active fusion of decisions. Each decision maker, referred to as a local decision maker, provides its suggestion in the form of a probability distribution over all possible decisions. The goal of the system is to learn the active sequential selection of the local decision makers in order to consult with and thus learn the final decision based on the consultations. These two learning tasks are formulated as learning a single sequential decision-making problem in the form of a Markov decision process (MDP), and a continuous reinforcement learning method is employed to solve it. The states of this MDP are decisions of the attended local decision makers, and the actions are either attending to a local decision maker or declaring final decisions. The learning system is punished for each consultation and wrong final decision and rewarded for correct final decisions. This results in minimizing the consultation and decision-making costs through learning a sequential consultation policy where the most informative local decision makers are consulted and the least informative, misleading, and redundant ones are left unattended. An important property of this policy is that it acts locally. This means that the system handles any nonuniformity in the local decision maker's expertise over the state space. This property has been exploited in the design of local experts. ADFL is tested on a set of classification tasks, where it outperforms two well-known classification methods, Adaboost and bagging, as well as three benchmark fusion algorithms: OWA, Borda count, and majority voting. In addition, the effect of local experts design strategy on the performance of ADFL is studied, and some guidelines for the design of local experts are provided. Moreover, evaluating ADFL in some special cases proves that it is able to derive the maximum benefit from the informative local decision makers and to minimize attending to redundant ones.


A numerical technique based on a suitable combination of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and fuzzy logic (FL) is presented. It is shown how the ANN solution of typical inverse problems can take advantage of the introduction of fuzzy information. The study case is an inverse electrostatic problem of some relevance for nondestructive testing (NDT) applications. The performance of both standard ANNs and the novel hybrid neuro-fuzzy model are compared, and it is shown that the structured approach is superior to the unstructured one, particularly in terms of speed of the learning phase.


This work examines spatial variability within and between structures in the Neolithic Eastern Mediterranean and goes on to explore a number of equally significant theoretical issues that play an important role in the understanding of the particular topic. These were matters related to the way spatial information is approached by archaeology and the degree to which the archaeological record is sufficient to provide information about activity areas and changes in the use of domestic space. The work therefore sets information about structures and their furnishing in a wider methodological and theoretical context. Included are extensive analyses tables of data on sites and finds.


When elected 15 months ago, the new Labour government pledged to modernize Britain and to equip it for the next century. Science is integral to fulfilling this promise. Last month we announced an additional £1.0 billion ($1.65 billion) investment in basic research over the 3 years starting in 1999–2000. This is linked to a further £400 million from the Wellcome Trust—the major charitable funder of scientific research in the United Kingdom—making £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) in total. Compared with government spending of £2.3 billion ($3.8 billion) on the science base in 1998–1999, this represents a major boost.

In investing in our science base, we are building on strength. In his analysis "The Scientific Wealth of Nations,"[*][1] my chief scientific adviser Robert May showed that the United Kingdom's basic research is second only to that of the United States in terms of the volume and influence of scientific publications and of winning major international scientific prizes. Our strengths are evenly spread across a wide range of disciplines, and we are particularly strong in the biomedical area. Last month's decision to spend an additional $2.3 billion on the science base is our response to the key research recommendation of a major inquiry into British higher education, which was reported in the summer of 1997. [†][2] That report said the top priority was to renew aging facilities and laboratories. It also emphasized the importance of directing resources to the very best scientists, a challenge facing all countries as it becomes increasingly expensive to stay in the business of world-class research.

Our investment includes some $1.5 billion for building and refurbishing university laboratories and equipment, including $500 million from the Wellcome Trust; $660 million to meet the recurrent and capital costs of new project funding in priority areas; and $165 million from Wellcome to be applied toward a new, high-intensity, synchrotron x-ray machine. The settlement also includes a commitment to retain dual support—separate funding streams for infrastructure and project support—but to improve transparency and accountability in universities' use of research funds. This adds up to a major additional investment in British science, reflecting the commitment of the new Labour government to modernization and reform.

Although it is said that the United Kingdom is good at science but poor at converting science into business, this is only partly true. Britain's successful aerospace, chemical, petrochemical, and pharmaceutical industries have long had close and productive links with our science base. More recently, we have had considerable success in biotechnology and in the creative media, building, for example, on our strengths in software design. However, in other areas we have not capitalized fully on our scientific strengths.

So alongside our investment in the science base we are working on initiatives to increase knowledge transfer between science and business. We have, for example, recently launched a £50 million ($82.5 million) scheme to provide venture capital for start-up companies spun off of universities. But it would be shortsighted to ignore the health of the science base itself. The new Labour government recognizes that the science base is the absolute bedrock of our economic performance, generating the skills, knowledge, and technology that will maintain the United Kingdom's competitive edge in the global markets of the new millennium. That is why we are investing now.

These are exciting times. Science continues to push back the frontiers of knowledge, finding new areas of which we were previously unaware and making discoveries that add novel twists to the world views we were taught as children. I intend to ensure that the United Kingdom continues to foster excellence in scientific and technological cooperation. Our success will help realize the creative potential of the next generation.

 [1]: #fn-1
 [2]: #fn-2


Although we tend to think of television primarily as a household fixture, TV monitors outside the home are widespread: in bars, laundromats, and stores; conveying flight arrival and departure times in airports; uniting crowds at sports events and allaying boredom in waiting rooms; and helping to pass the time in workplaces of all kinds. In Ambient Television Anna McCarthy explores the significance of this pervasive phenomenon, tracing the forms of conflict, commerce, and community that television generates outside the home.

Discussing the roles television has played in different institutions from 1945 to the present day, McCarthy draws on a wide array of sources. These include retail merchandising literature, TV industry trade journals, and journalistic discussions of public viewing, as well as the work of cultural geographers, architectural theorists, media scholars, and anthropologists. She also uses photography as a research tool, documenting the uses and meanings of television sets in the built environment, and focuses on such locations as the tavern and the department store to show how television is used to support very different ideas about gender, class, and consumption. Turning to contemporary examples, McCarthy discusses practices such as Turner Private Networks' efforts to transform waiting room populations into advertising audiences and the use of point-of-sale video that influences brand visibility and consumer behavior. Finally, she inquires into the activist potential of out-of-home television through a discussion of the video practices of two contemporary artists in everyday public settings.

Scholars and students of cultural, visual, urban, American, film, and television studies will be interested in this thought-provoking, interdisciplinary book.


One of the greatest health problems threatening the human race is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIV/AIDS stigma and its related discrimination is a major constraint to the prevention and control of HIV. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has had a selective impact on young men and women who constitute the main stay of the workforce. This study aims to assess the opinion of workers in a corporate setting regarding HIVrelated stigma and discrimination and their attitudes towards HIV positive persons in the workplace. A cross sectional descriptive study was carried out. Asemi-structured, self-administered pre-tested questionnaire was filled by four hundred workers in three randomly selected insurance companies in Lagos State. All workers present at work on the day of the survey were given the questionnaires to fill. All questionnaires were filled independently and collected immediately after they had been filled. Data was collated and analyzed using Epi info software version 6. Most of the respondents (83%) were of the opinion that HIV positive persons were being unfairly treated in the society and almost all of them (93%) believed that they did not deserve such treatment. However up to 25% of them felt that an employer had the right to deny a person employment solely based on his/her HIV status and up to 15% believed that HIV positive persons should be isolated. Fortyfour percent of respondents would not share an office computer with a known HIV positive coworker, 47.7% would not share the same eating utensils and 55.9% would not share the same toilet with a known HIV positive co-worker. Similarly, up to 64% felt that there should be separate dining facilities for HIV positive persons and almost 60% felt that there should be separate toilet facilities for HIV positive persons. This was despite the fact that over 95% of the respondents were aware that HIV could not be transmitted by such means. Almost a quarter (23.5%) of the respondents would not openly associate with known HIV positive persons. There was no statistically significant relationship between sex, income, ethnicity or religion and the decision to openly associate with HIV positive persons. (p>0.05) however educational level was found to be significantly associated with the decision to openly associate with HIV positive persons. (P Key words: HIV, stigma, discrimination, HIV positive persons, workers.


Rats, rabbits, swine, guinea pigs, and monkeys were infected with anthrax spores, and their temperature responses were recorded. These were characteristic for a species and appeared independent of resistance or susceptibility of the species toward establishment of the disease. The rabbit appeared unique in that it not only failed to demonstrate a dose-response relationship over an 8-log dose range, but acted independently producing erratic body temperatures depending on spore dose. This limits the usefulness of the rabbit in studying anthrax pathogenesis, and poses questions regarding published data with the rabbit as the test animal.


Patients from India and Pakistan frequently communicate their emotional distress in terms of somatic sensations and somatic metaphors. Language and cultural difficulties may prevent recognition of psychiatric disorders. A new questionnaire is described, to assist identification of psychiatric disorders among Asian patients who present with somatic symptoms.


In this letter, we present experimental data showing that hot-carrier stress in laser annealed polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors provokes an anomalous turn-on voltage variation. Although under various hot-carrier stress intensities the maximum transconductance degradation shows the same power-time dependent law, turn-on voltage can exhibit different behaviors. This observation lead to the conclusion that turn-on voltage depends on two different degradation mechanisms: injection of hot carriers into the gate oxide and degradation of grain boundaries. We show that these two mechanisms may be distinguished since they obey different power-time dependent laws as a function of stress duration.